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Tuesday, 3 March 2015

Whether
or not climate change " helped spark" the unjust war
against Syria by external forces taking advantage of local tensions
or not, it has exacerbated the appalling problems the war has
created.

All wars are resource wars and the M.E. will be confronted
with the West continuing to attempt to control the regions resources
be those fossil fuels, water,productive land or hard working people.

The criminal Zionist regime behind the occupation of the Golan
heights is presently drilling for oil/gas in the Golan, as they are
off the coast of ‪#‎ConcentrationcampGaza‬
in complete breach of UN conventions banning an occupying force from
exploiting the occupied nations natural reяources

(yeah I know, when
did they ever worry about the U.N.).

Deforestation will continue to
make the M.E. a drier, more arid region making Syria's fertile plains
and valleys another target for imperialist intentions. Never
underestimate the issue of A.C.C.in wars,it will soon become the norm
as our global habitat dies away.

A
new study says a record drought that ravaged Syria in 2006-2010 was
likely stoked by ongoing manmade climate change, and that the drought
may have helped propel the 2011 Syrian uprising. Researchers say the
drought, the worst ever recorded in the region, destroyed agriculture
in the breadbasket region of northern Syria, driving dispossessed
farmers to cities, where poverty, government mismanagement and other
factors created unrest that exploded in spring 2011. The conflict has
since evolved into a complex multinational war that has killed at
least 200,000 people and displaced millions. The study appears today
in the leading journal Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We're
not saying the drought caused the war," said Richard Seager, a
climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory who coauthored the study. "We're saying that added
to all the other stressors, it helped kick things over the threshold
into open conflict. And a drought of that severity was made much more
likely by the ongoing human-driven drying of that region."

A
growing body of research suggests that extreme weather, including
high temperatures and droughts, increases the chances of violence,
from individual attacks to full-scale wars. Some researchers project
that manmade global warming will heighten future conflicts, or argue
that it may already be doing so.

And recent journalistic accounts and
other reports have linked warfare in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in
part to environmental issues, especially lack of water. The new
study, combining climate, social and economic data, is perhaps the
first to look closely and quantitatively at these questions in
relation to a current war.

The
recent drought affected the so-called Fertile Crescent, spanning
parts of Turkey and much of Syria and Iraq, where agriculture and
animal herding are believed to have started some 12,000 years ago.
The region has always seen natural weather swings. But using existing
studies and their own research, the authors showed that since 1900,
the area has undergone warming of 1 to 1.2 degrees Centigrade (about
2 degrees Fahrenheit), and about a 10 percent reduction in wet-season
precipitation. They showed that the trend matches neatly with models
of human-influenced global
warming,
and thus cannot be attributed to natural variability.

An
estimated 1.5 million people fled Syria's drought-stricken areas,
many of them to the peripheries of cities already swollen by refugees
from the next-door war in Iraq. Credit: Stephen Starr/IRIN

Global
warming has had two effects, they say. First, it appears to have
indirectly weakened wind patterns that bring rain-laden air from the
Mediterranean, reducing precipitation during the usual November-April
wet season. Second, higher temperatures have increased evaporation of
moisture from soils during the usually hot summers, giving any dry
year a one-two punch. The region saw substantial droughts in the
1950s, 1980s and 1990s. However, 2006-10 was easily the worst and
longest since reliable recordkeeping began. The researchers concluded
that an episode of this severity and length would have been unlikely
without the long-term changes.

Other
researchers have observed the long-term drying trend across the
entire Mediterranean, and attributed at least part of it to manmade
warming; this includes an earlier study from the U.S. National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change has predicted that the already violent Mideast will
dry more in coming decades as human-induced warming proceeds.

The
study's authors say Syria was made especially vulnerable by other
factors, including sheer population growth—from 4 million in the
1950s to 22 million in recent years. Also, the ruling al-Assad family
encouraged water-intensive export crops like cotton. Illegal drilling
of irrigation wells dramatically depleted groundwater that might have
provided reserves during dry years, said coauthor Shahrzad Mohtadi, a
graduate student at Columbia's School of International and Public
Affairs who did the economic and social components of the research.

The
drought's effects were immediate. Agricultural production, typically
a quarter of the country's gross domestic product, plummeted by a
third. In the hard-hit northeast, livestock herds were practically
all obliterated; cereal prices doubled; and nutrition-related
diseases among children saw dramatic increases. As many as 1.5
million people fled from the countryside to the peripheries of cities
that were already strained by influxes of refugees from the ongoing
war in next-door Iraq. In these chaotic instant suburbs, the Assad
regime did little to help people with employment or services, said
Mohtadi. It was largely in these areas that the uprising began.

"Rapid
demographic change encourages instability," say the authors.
"Whether it was a primary or substantial factor is impossible to
know, but drought can lead to devastating consequences when coupled
with preexisting acute vulnerability."

Solomon
Hsiang, a professor of public policy at the University of California,
Berkeley who studies climate and conflict, said the study is "the
first scientific paper to make the case that human-caused climate
change
is already altering the risk of large-scale social unrest and
violence." Hsiang said this is not the first time the region has
faced the issue: research by other scientists has suggested that the
Akkadian Empire, spanning much of the Fertile Crescent about 4,200
years ago, likely collapsed during a multi-year drought.

Marshall
Burke, an environmental scientist at Stanford University who studies
climate and agriculture, said, "There were many things going on
in the region and world at that time, such as high global food prices
and the beginning of the Arab Spring, that could have also increased
the likelihood of civil conflict." But, he said, the study is
"consistent with a large body of statistical evidence linking
changes in climate to conflict."

The
study's lead author is climatologist Colin Kelley, who did the work
while working on his PhD. at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; he is
now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. It was also coauthored by climate scientists Mark Cane and
Yochanan Kushnir, also of Lamont-Doherty.

"NATO
and the United States should change their policy because the time
when they dictate their conditions to the world has passed,"
Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Dushanbe, capital of the Central
Asian republic of Tajikistan

Despite
the need to store extra water from this year’s floods to activate
the Grand
Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
in September 2015, the Egyptian government had to discharge extra
amounts of water — other than the amount that is released from the
Aswan Dam on a daily basis — to generate more hydroelectric power
to solve the power cut crises. The Renaissance Dam, on the Blue Nile
River in Ethiopia, is expected to become the largest hydroelectric
power plant in Africa and will have direct consequences on Egypt and
Sudan.

According
to Hossam
el-Moghazy, the Egyptian minister of water resources and
irrigation, the Aswan Dam committee has discharged 10 million
cubic meters (353 million cubic feet) from the Nile per day, for 10
days, to produce more hydroelectric
energy.

In
a news conference organized by the Ministry of Water Resources and
Irrigation, Moghazy said that the emission of this amount of water
from storage in Lake Nasser, which is considered strategic, occurred
at a time when Egypt is struggling with drought and in terrible need
to store every possible drop. “This is the cost of the terrorist
acts committed by the extremist groups that bombed and destroyed
electricity stations and towers, which led to long power cuts and the
disruption of indispensable facilities,” Moghazy explained.

“We
are sorry, but there was an electricity crisis. The emission of extra
water for 10 days helped in solving this crisis by contributing to
the production of hydroelectric power. There was significant
improvement and the officials in the Ministry of Electricity overcame
the crisis,” Moghazy said.

In
a phone interview with Al-Monitor, former Minister of Water
Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Nasr Eldin Allam criticized the
government for wasting such amounts of water from the vital storage
point in Lake Nasser, while the country is on the verge of a water
crisis in the coming year, in addition to the scheduled activation of
the first phase of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

“When
I was minister of irrigation, I prevented using the water of
floodings to cleanse
the Nile
in addition to preventing any drop from the Nile from reaching the
Mediterranean, despite its importance," Allam said. "All
of this was to preserve every drop of water in anticipation of
droughts, so Egyptians would never be thirsty.

“As
minister of irrigation, I had to discharge certain amounts of water
from Lake Nasser to solve urgent electricity crises. However, this
would be done according to certain restrictions by storing the
discharged water behind al-Qanater, Esna, Nag Hammadi and Asyut along
the Nile, to reuse the water after having solved an electricity
crisis, with the purpose of preserving the Lake Nasser storage. This
is why the government is not doing the right thing right now.”

The
scheduled activation of the Egyptian Renaissance Dam in September
2015 requires Egypt to store enough water from current flooding to
avoid a severe water crisis. The first phase of the activation will
have a major effect on electricity shortages at the Aswan Dam and it
would be difficult to activate a number of its stations.

Mohamed
Abdel Aty, former head of Nile water at the Ministry of Water
Resources and Irrigation, revealed this in an interview with
Al-Monitor. He also confirmed the inevitability of Egypt heading
toward serious negotiations with the Ethiopian government to pursue
the electricity-linkage project between the two countries and Sudan.

Abdel
Aty said that this electricity-linkage
project
between Egypt and Ethiopia, in partnership with Sudan, will be much
more important for Ethiopians since Ethiopia would be able to benefit
from Egypt’s power-generating stations during the Nile’s drought
period, while Egypt would be able to use the electricity surplus from
the Ethiopian Reconnaissance Dam.

When
asked about his opinion concerning the current amount of water
discharged from the Aswan Dam to solve the electricity crisis, Abdel
Aty explained that the purpose of this was not limited to increasing
hydroelectric power generation, but it was also to cleanse the Nile
from pollution. This cleanse also included the highly polluted
Rosetta and Damietta branch rivers since the ministry stopped water
emission to reduce pollution years ago, because of the water
shortage.

“The
Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation and the Aswan Dam
committee are capable of returning this amount of water back to Lake
Nasser in the next month by reducing the daily discharge and storing
larger amounts from flooding into the lake,” Abdel Aty said.

Haitham
Awad, a professor of irrigation engineering and water hydraulics at
the University of Alexandria, spoke to Al-Monitor concerning the
Egyptian-Ethiopian electricity-linkage project. “The
electricity-linkage project with Ethiopia will be beneficial for both
parties. According to published studies, the power to activate the
Renaissance Dam is for less than six hours per day and its efficiency
is less than 30%," Awad said. "This is why Ethiopia
needs alternative energy, which is available in Egypt since the
country only relies on the hydroelectric power from the Aswan Dam 10%
[of the time], while 90% of the time it uses thermal stations to
generate electricity.

“Electricity
exchange between the two countries is highly possible. The
Renaissance Dam covers the electricity shortage in Egypt during rush
hours, while Ethiopia regains electricity during the dam’s pause
and during drought periods when there is no water to activate the
dam,” Awad said.

Cairo
is facing an electricity shortage, and its power cuts are
lasting longer. The solutions for this crisis might result in more
dangerous problems in the future. Egyptians will suffer darkness and
drought in case there are no serious procedures to face the crisis of
activating the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the water shortage it
could cause in Egypt. This would eventually lead to a deficiency in
the Aswan Dam’s electricity production, the first phase of which
would reach 14 billion cubic meters (494 billion cubic feet) of water
from the Nile, to be stored in the new dam in September, ultimately
reaching 74 billion cubic meters (2,613 billion cubic feet) by the
time the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is fully activated.

The
movie talks about Palestinian agriculture in the Jordan Valley.
Nowadays most of the agriculture in the area is cultivated by illegal
Israeli settlers who appropriated land and water from Palestinian
farmers. Having limited access to water Palestinian farmers are
forced to change their traditional agricultural practices or even
leave their original places of living in search of better life.

Think
of all those wonderful US weapons that will fall in the hands of Isis

US-aided
moderate Syrian rebel group disbands

Beirut,
March 2 (IANS/EFE) Hazm, a moderate rebel group that has received
military aid from the US, has announced its dissolution after recent
losses on the ground, according to a statement published on the
internet.

In
the statement, the Hazm Movement, an offshoot of the Free Syrian
Army, explains that the party has disbanded, and its members will
join the Levant Front, the primary armed Islamist alliance of Aleppo.

The
statement emphasises that the group has made the decision due to "the
dominance of the criminal regime" in Syria, especially in
Aleppo.

The
Hazm Movement was one of the few remaining rebel factions in Syria
with no Islamist affinity.

The
announcement of the disbandment took place after last week's intense
fighting in Aleppo between Hazm and the Nusra Front, an affiliate of
the Al Qaeda in Syria, which on Saturday seized a crucial stronghold
from the moderate insurgents.

Previously,
Hazm had also been expelled from the neighbouring province of Idlib
by the Nusra Front.

In
a related development, renewed fighting has broken out in the past
month around the northern outskirts of Aleppo between opposition and
regime forces, the latter trying to make ground around the border and
cut insurgent supply routes from Turkey.

The
dissolution of the rebel group comes as the UN special envoy to
Syria, Staffan de Mistura, visits Damascus in an attempt to bolster
his proposal for a ceasefire in Aleppo.

Two
weeks ago, the international mediator revealed that the Syrian
government had agreed to stop the bombing and artillery fire in
Aleppo for a period of six weeks, the commencement of which would be
decided shortly in Damascus.

The
UN reported on Sunday that De Mistura has decided to send a
delegation to Aleppo to prepare the cessation of hostilities.

That
delegation will aim to analyse the situation on the ground and ensure
that once the truce is officially announced, humanitarian aid
entering the city will increase significantly

Antonio
Donato Nobre: The magic of the Amazon: A river that flows invisibly
all around

The
Amazon River is like a heart, pumping water from the seas through it,
and up into the atmosphere through 600 billion trees, which act like
lungs. Clouds form, rain falls and the forest thrives. In a lyrical
talk, Antonio Donato Nobre talks us through the interconnected
systems of this region, and how they provide environmental services
to the entire world. A parable for the extraordinary symphony that is
nature

The
Nemtsov murder investigation has focused on the theory that the crime
was organized by a Chechen militant commander Adam
Osmayev, of the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion, who also was named in the
case concerning the attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin.
Investigators are allowing for the possibility that the militants,
who fought against DPR and LPR, operated at the behest of Ukrainian
secret services, since the murder of the opposition leader would have
discredited the Russian leadership and destabilize the political
situation.

A
law enforcement source had told the media that the investigating
group has evidence that Ukrainian secret services played a role in
Nemtsov’s murder. On the day of the murder the Investigative
Committee spokesperson Vladimir Markin announced that the
investigators are studying the possibility the murder was intended to
destabilize the political situation in the country.

“The
murder could have been used as a provocation to destabilize the
situation, with Nemtsov becoming a sort of a sacrificial lamb for
those who are not overly choosy in their political methods,” Markin
told Izvestiya.

The
investigators are also working on other versions: political,
extremist, business, and personal. However, judging by the quality of
preparation and implementation, it was done by professionals. The
Izvestiya source said that the killer shot Nemtsov only a few tens of
meters from the Kremlin, and it since became known that the murder
took place in a spot not covered by a surveillance camera. Moreover,
they chose a time during which there are no traffic jams, but there
is still heavy traffic in the center which allowed the killers’ car
to become lost among other vehicles.

The
information that Ukraine’s special services ordered the murder is
being verified. The bandits may have performed a mission assigned by
Ukrainian secret services, but also avenged the death of their former
leader Isa Munaev. He was killed on February 1 during the battle for
Debaltsevo, after which the battalion’s command was taken over by
Adam Osmayev.

The
so-called Dzhokhar Dudayev international peacekeeping battalion is
fighting on Ukraine’s side, and was formed by Munaev in March 2014.
Munaev fought in the first Chechen campaign against Russian forces,
and after 1999 he declared himself the commander of the South-Western
sector and participated in organizing acts of terrorism.

Munaev
fled Chechnya in 2006 for Denmark, where he received asylum. He
founded the movement “Free Caucaus” which, according to secret
services, financed terrorists. When in 2014 the Ukrainian government
launched the ATO against LPR and DPR, Munaev went to Ukraine and
declared the formation of his battalion. Russian sources indicate
that he was personally invited Igor Kolomoisky, who financed the
battalion. The battalion’s core were Chechen immigrants in Denmark,
and citizens of other countries who belonged to terrorist
organizations.

Isa
Munaev was one of the individuals, along with the commanders of Azov
and Dnepr, who supported terrorism on Russia’s soil and who were
ordered delivered to Chechnya by Ramzan Kadyrov.

Russian
services are trying to establish how many people participated in the
preparation and implementation of Nemtsov’s murder. It cannot be
ruled out that, in addition to killers and spotters, there were also
“controllers” in Moscow who observed the murder’s aftermath and
political effect. One of them may have been the Ukrainian deputy
Aleksey Goncharenko. Experts who were questioned by Izvestiya believe
the theory of foreign secret service involvement to have merit.

J.Hawk’s
Comment: If true, that would have been about as big a
blow that could have been struck by the Ukrainian secret services,
because it is aimed at several fissures all at once. It not only
creates for Russia’s relations with the West, but also threatens to
undermine peace in Chechnya, and to stir-up anti-Chechen sentiment in
Russia. Moreover, many members of the “liberal” “opposition”
in Russia (especially Aleksey Navalnyy) are stridently anti-Chechen
(and anti-minority in general) and lean in the direction of ethnic
Russian nationalism.

Finally,
Ukrainian nationalists have more than once called for the resumption
of the "jihad" against Russia, and applauded when Islamist
militants struck in Groznyy a few months ago.

Imagine
this scenario: The following is a Public Service Announcement by the
New York Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Water,
July 4, 2015: Because of low water levels in state reservoirs, the
Division of Water proclaims a statewide water-rationing program.
Starting next month, on August 1st, 2015, water service will turn off
at 1:00 P.M. on a daily basis for an indeterminate period of time.
Service will return the following morning.

Now,
imagine a city the size of the State of New York with its 20 million
people subjected to the same water-rationing plan. As it happens, São
Paulo, capital city of Brazil, home to 20 million, is such a city.
The water is turned off every day at 1:00 P.M., as reported by Donna
Bowater.1

Brazil
contains an estimated 12% of the world’s fresh water, but São
Paulo is running dry.

Fatally,
the city’s Cantareira Water Reservoir (water resource for 6.2
million of the city’s 20 million) is down to 6% of capacity, yes,
six percent! The city’s other reservoirs are also dangerously low.
Perilously, São Paulo’s days of water supply are numbered.

What’s
the Problem?

Deforestation,
the nearly complete disappearance of the Atlantic Forest and
continuing deforestation of the Amazon, that’s the problem. Forests
have an innate ability to import moisture and to cool down and to
favor rain, which is what makes “regional climates” so unique.

According
to one of Brazil’s leading earth scientist and climatologist, Dr.
Antonio Nobre, Earth System Science Centre and Chief Science Advisor,
National Institute for Research in the Amazon, Brazil: “There is a
hot dry air mass sitting down here [São Paulo] like an elephant and
nothing can move it… If deforestation in the Amazon continues, São
Paulo will probably dry up.”2

According
to Dr. Nobre: “Vegetation-climate equilibrium is teetering on the
brink of the abyss. If it tips, the Amazon will start to become a
much drier savanna, with calamitous consequences.”3

Deforestation
Alters the Climate

“Studies
more than 20 years ago predicted what is happening with lowering
rainfall. Amazon deforestation is altering climate. It is no longer
about models. It is about observation. The connection with the event
in São Paulo is important because finally people are paying
attention.”3

São
Paulo is Brazil’s richest state as well as its principal economic
region. Sorrowfully, it may “dry up.” It could really truly
happen because it’s already mostly there, right now, as of today.

Where
will its 20 million inhabitants go?

Nobody
knows!

The
Atlantic Forest stretches along the eastern coastline of the country.
A few hundred years ago, the forest was twice the size of Texas.
Today, it is maybe 15% of its former self and what remains is highly
fragmented. The forest harbors 5% of the world’s vertebrates and 8%
of Earth’s plants. Illegal logging, land conversion to pasture, and
expansion of urban areas have put extreme stress on the Atlantic
Forest. The same holds true for the giant Amazon rainforest.

Brazil
holds one-third of the world’s remaining rainforests. In the past,
deforestation was the result of poor subsistence farmers, but times
change. Today, large landowners and corporate interests have
cleared the rainforest at an unprecedented rate. At the current rate,
the Amazon rainforest will be further reduced by 40% by 2030.

Rainforests
are the oldest ecosystem on earth and arguably one of the most
critical resources for sustainability of life, dubbed “the lungs of
the planet.”

National
Geographic magazine
summarizes the plight of rainforests in a recent article, stating:
“In the time it takes to read this article, an area of Brazil’s
rainforest larger than 200 football fields will have been destroyed.
The market forces of globalization are invading the Amazon.”4

Yes,
within 20 minutes, only 20, the Amazon rainforest loses the
equivalent of 200 football fields. Americans connect with football.
It is one of the biggest revenue-producing sports in history. And,
that’s not all; football fields provide a good descriptive tool of
dimensions. In fact, 200 football fields are equivalent to the space
required for 1,000 stand alone single-family homes, which means the
Amazon rainforest loses equivalent to 72,000 stand alone
single-family homes, or a small city, per day, everyday, gone
forever. That’s a lot of rainforest gone day-in day-out, which
ironically provides timber for building houses, but, in point of
fact, most of it is burned away. Poof it’s gone, big puffs of
smoke into the atmosphere.

During
the past 40 years, close to 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest has
been cut down—more than in all the previous 450 years since
European colonization began… Scientists fear that an additional 20
percent of the trees will be lost over the next two decades into the
atmosphere. If that happens, the forest’s ecology will begin to
unravel. In fact, the Amazon produces half its own rainfall through
the moisture it releases into the atmosphere. Eliminate enough of
that rain through clearing, and the remaining trees dry out and die.4

Rainforests
are the World’s Most Invaluable Nэtural Resource

Nature
at work: (1) The Amazon produces half of its own rainfall and most of
the rain south of the Amazon and east of the Andes, (2) rainforests
sequester carbon by holding and absorbing carbon dioxide, thus,
controlling global warming as it actually cleanses the atmosphere.
(3) rainforests maintain remarkable panoply of life with species not
found anywhere else and provide medicinal products, like cancer
treatment, and (4) these spectacular forests produce 20% of the
planet’s oxygen. Every fifth breath murmurs “thank you
rainforests.”

Rainforests
cover less than 2% of Earth’s total surface area but are home to
50% of the plants and animals. That’s a lot of “bang for the
buck.” Moreover, critical for survival, the rainforests act as the
world’s thermostat by regulating temperatures and weather patterns,
and they are absolutely necessary in maintaining Earth’s supply of
drinking and fresh water. For confirmation of the significance of
that “necessity,” ask the residents of São Paulo.

As
for the size of the world’s rainforests, “the original untouched
resource of six million square miles of rainforests” has already
been chopped down by 60%. Only 2.4 million square miles remain today.

“A
paradox of chance,” claims Dr. Antonio Nobre: “Remarkably, there
is a quadrangle of land in South America that should be desert. It’s
on line with the deserts, but it is not. It’s the Amazon
rainforest.”

Based
upon studies of the Amazon’s impact on climate, Dr. Antonio Nobre
offers a solution to climate change/global warming. Rebuild
Forests. Yes, rebuild ’em: “We can save planet Earth. I’m
not talking about only the Amazon. The Amazon teaches us a lesson on
how pristine nature works… We can save other areas, including
deserts, if we could establish forests in those areas, we can reverse
climate change, including global warming.”5

For
example, fighting back. China is building a giant green wall, a tree
belt, hoping to stop the Kubuqi Desert from spreading east along the
front line of the huge Chinese Dust Bowl, the world’s largest dust
bowl. Fifty years ago, portions of this same eastern desert area were
grasslands, growing crops, raising cattle and sheep. Today,
windstorms from the Kubuqi send plumes all the way across the Pacific
to the U.S. West Coast.

Ergo,
proof positive people do not need to stand by idly twiddling thumbs,
watching human-caused climate change ravage countryside. Things can
be done!

However,
as for China, it may already be too late: “Northwestern China is on
the verge of a massive ecological meltdown.”6

Thus,
the most provocative question surrounding the global warming issue
is: When is the problem bigger than solutions?

The
global warming/climate change issue is much, much deeper and
considerably more robust than this short essay depicts. It is a
gargantuan monster that is likely already out of control with CO2 in
the atmosphere at levels flashing warning signals going back hundreds
of thousands of years, frightening real
scientists but
not enough to frighten the U.S. Congress into instituting a
nationwide renewables initiative. In fact, Congress is stiff and
lifeless.

As
it goes, the overriding climate change quandary consists of (1)
“fossil fuels ruling the world,” (2) COP’s (Conference of
Parties aka; UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) ineffective
endless meetings, ho-hum, and (3) frankly, most of the people in the
world don’t give a damn. End of story.

Meanwhile,
with deforestation in the Amazon once again accelerating, hapless São
Paulo may morph into a real life version of Road
Warrior (Warner
Bros. 1981), a dusty, dirty vision of the future where resources are
hard to find and decent people turn nasty as desperate marauding
groups battle for survival in the desert.

Maybe
that’ll wake people up!

Postscript:
To access a video about the Amazon by Dr. Antonio Nobre, click here.

Robert
Hunziker (MA,
economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and
environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into
foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and
sites worldwide, like Z Magazine, European Project on Ocean
Acidification, Ecosocialism Canada, Climate Himalaya, Counterpunch,
Dissident Voice, Comite Valmy, and UK Progressive. He has been
interviewed about climate change on Pacifica Radio, KPFK, FM90.7,
Indymedia On Air, and the World View Show/UK, as well as Thom
Hartmann’s Big Picture, and Norman B’s Life Elsewhere, 88.5 WMNF.
He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read
other articles by Robert.

4.
Scott Wallace, “Last of the Amazon,” National
Geographic,
March 2015. [↩]
[↩]

5.
Antonio Donato Nobre, “The Magic of the Amazon: A River That Flows
Invisibly All Around Us”, TEDxAmazonia,
November 2010. [↩]

6.
Lester R. Brown, “The World’s Biggest Dust Bowl: China is Losing
the War on Advancing Deserts”, The
New York Times,
August 13, 2013. [↩]

Behold
Sao Paulo

Behold
Sao Paulo, Brazil, a mega-city of 20 million, about to run out of
water in 60 days.

Come
May or June, the place may have become a war zone, and come June or
July, a death trap. This won't be hard to visualize. Just imagine
yourself living in an apartment somewhere in the thick of it, and the
tap is dry - for days on end, may be weeks, months... with no relief
in sight.

I
don't need to imagine; I have experience. When I was a kid of about
10 in Hong Kong, there used to be water rationing during the dry
winter season. Four hours of tap water for the city block every
fourth day. Those living on high floors still had not a drop, due to
everyone lower down having their taps turned on. People were
screaming, "HEY! DOWNSTAIRS! TURN OFF YOUR (expletive optional)
TAP!!!" I lived on the 4th floor, and had to line up at the
communal tap in the street with a bucket in each hand, then had to
stagger back up 4 flights of stairs due to the absence of an
elevator. Yet, through it all, there was courtesy and order.

But
there is a major difference. Back in Hong Kong, we knew that water
would come for at least 4 hours 4 days hence, and later, the summer
monsoon will come to refill the reservoirs, guaranteed. Now in Sao
Paulo, there is no promises, no guarantees, no end in sight.

What
would I do were I in the middle of the city? I would get the hell out
ASAP. But, where to? And what if millions of my fellow citizens have
the same idea? A mass exodus to... nowhere? Ah, wait. How about the
Amazon? Still lots of water there. The rainforest be damned.

This
leads to another concern. As of this writing, a mass exodus does not
appear to be happening, meaning that few are taking it seriously, in
which case the vast majority of the residents will be surprised,
unprepared, in 2 months' time, perhaps fatally, when it is too late.

Sao
Paulo is in dire straights, but it is not the only one. Others are
not far behind, and closer to home, including Las Vegas, Phoenix and
Tucson. and according to this article, Las Vegas is proving this
latest point about Sao Paulo.

[...
Consider Las Vegas while you ponder all this: Here's a city with no
water future whatsoever, continuing to build new casinos and grow its
population even as the water level of Lake Mead has already dropped
to emergency levels (and continues to plummet). What do the people of
Las Vegas imagine they will drink when all the cheap, easy water is
gone?... The sobering truth is that nearly everyone who lives in Las
Vegas doesn't think about this. By definition, anyone who realized
the truth about the disappearing water throughout Nevada, Arizona and
California would have already sold their property and moved away.
Those who still inhabit regions with unsustainable water supplies --
such as Sao Paulo -- are choosing to make believe the problem doesn't
exist...]